A little E-flat minor 7 anyone?

If you haven't already guessed...i'm a composer for film and games. I'm new to the forum, and I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Jon Pierre...I won't be much help in the programming world, but if you have any questions or need advice about music, recording, and/or the production of it...fire away! Glad to be here.

J_Pierre Wrote:Where do you think i should post in this forum to offer my services?

The Designer's Studio forum would probably be the most appropriate place. I'll go ahead and move this thread there.

Also, I have a question for you, actually. Do you have any links to resources (articles, books, guides, tutorials, anything of the sort) which are specifically for video game music composition? I've been able to find shockingly little. Most of what I've found when I've looked has been about general music theory, playing real instruments, or some specific genre of music that has nothing directly to do with games...

ThemsAllTook Wrote:The Designer's Studio forum would probably be the most appropriate place. I'll go ahead and move this thread there.

Also, I have a question for you, actually. Do you have any links to resources (articles, books, guides, tutorials, anything of the sort) which are specifically for video game music composition? I've been able to find shockingly little. Most of what I've found when I've looked has been about general music theory, playing real instruments, or some specific genre of music that has nothing directly to do with games...

I don't know if anything specific to creating music for games. I think it's because the music is very specific to whatever game you're producing. So because the music style changes for each game, a specific approach would be difficult to theorize. But if you'd like some great reading on composition for film, there 's a book called "The Art of Film Music" by George Burt. It's a little academic, but it's very detailed. In general you can apply the same techniques in films to video games. The main difference though is that Video game scores can be very interactive and should be able to change during gameplay depending on a players actions.

J_Pierre Wrote:The main difference though is that Video game scores can be very interactive and should be able to change during gameplay depending on a players actions.

Note sure if this is what you were mentioning, but I once read that some games had tried manipulating the in-game soundtracks to reflect the actions of the player (if he's fighting, there's more bass and drums, perhaps)...is this what you were referencing? If so, I'll definitely be sure to check out that book, since I've been interested in doing this for some time

wyrmmage Wrote:Note sure if this is what you were mentioning, but I once read that some games had tried manipulating the in-game soundtracks to reflect the actions of the player (if he's fighting, there's more bass and drums, perhaps)...is this what you were referencing? If so, I'll definitely be sure to check out that book, since I've been interested in doing this for some time

Yes. I myself haven't done this personally but I've worked on at least two projects (Invictus: In the Shadow of Olympus and Star Trek: Tactical Assault that do this. From what I understand that we do, we have chunks of music where the beginning and end of each can flow into another chunk. So if you're flying around and a ship comes out to attack you, we can adjust the music so that it flows into the "you're being attacked music" without any breaks.

wyrmmage Wrote:Note sure if this is what you were mentioning, but I once read that some games had tried manipulating the in-game soundtracks to reflect the actions of the player (if he's fighting, there's more bass and drums, perhaps)...is this what you were referencing? If so, I'll definitely be sure to check out that book, since I've been interested in doing this for some time

Thanks,
-wyrmmage

Yeah...that's exactly what i'm talking about. But the book I mentioned is actually an old book, with some examples from old moves from the 40's and 50's. It won't speak specifically to gaming at all. It will however give you some solid ways to think about scoring to picture, because that's really what all of this is.